Sara could see GCHQ below them.
‘We’re going to put down near the entrance to the underground access road,’ said the soldier in front of her.
A sudden wave of fear rolled through Sara as she stared through the open door at the ground thousands of feet below.
‘We’re not safe here,’ she said to the soldier. ‘We need to leave. Now!’
She began to take off her harness, her fingers trembling.
The soldier shook his head.
‘Don’t. We can’t be a target …’
A high-pitched electronic scream boomed through the interior of the helicopter.
‘Incoming!’ shouted the soldier, his face rigid with fear and confusion. He twisted around to the pilots. ‘How can that be?’
Through the window, Sara saw two puffs of smoke rise from the roof of the facility, and from within them plumes streaking towards the helicopters.
‘We’ve been targeted by GCHQ’s own surface-to-air missiles!’ shouted one of the pilots.
And then the world turned upside down.
It seemed to happen in slow motion.
She could feel the energy of the machine, sense its immense power and forward thrust.
And then, in a second, an explosion rocked the back of the aircraft, and the energy was snuffed out. They were flying in a metal corpse, high in the sky, with all the ability to remain airborne of a car driven off a cliff.
The rotor blades swiped two or three times, slowly, lazily, natural momentum propelling them forwards, before stopping completely.
Shouts rang out on the edges of her perception. It was impossible to tell if they were instructions or panicked screams.
The helicopter tipped sideways first, morphing from a forward momentum to a downward one, dropping like a rock. Seated bodies lurched forwards, thrown against their restraining harnesses with such force that the occupants cried out, and Caleb staggered, his hands grabbing at the air, at the very edge of the open cargo side door. His body was in silhouette against the bright sky. Towering white cumulus clouds reared up behind him, like angry giants reaching for him.
Sara watched in shock.
This was it.
This was the moment she had seen before.
The crashing mountainous glaciers, the frozen waves, Caleb being swallowed into the depths. Her vision.
They had been clouds, not an ice-ocean.
‘No!’
Her arms were outstretched even as his centre of gravity carried him over, outside the helicopter, backwards and falling, beyond her reach.